Today is the Birthday of the Man Who Abolished the Slave Trade

By Bill King

Today is the birthday of William Wilberforce.  Abraham Lincoln once said Wilberforce’s name is one that every schoolboy should know.  Yet I suspect it is a name that many of you will not recognize.

Wilberforce was a member of the British Parliament for nearly three decades in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s.  Over his long career in Parliament he enjoyed many accomplishments.

However, he is best remembered as the person most responsible for the slave trade being outlawed in the British Empire, which proved to be the beginning of the end of legalized slavery throughout the world.

Wilberforce was an unlikely political hero.  He was born to a wealthy merchant family and gained admission to St. John’s College at Cambridge through his family connections.  While he was brilliant, he was more of a bon vivant than a serious student throughout his college career.  After school, he was elected as one of the youngest members of Parliament.

However, in his mid-20’s Wilberforce experienced a religious conversion.  After that, he devoted himself to a series of humanitarian causes, with abolition being his principal passion.

He also founded what we now know as the SPCA, the Bible Society, was an early advocate of women’s suffrage and a patron of dozens of other charities and causes on which he spent almost his entire inherited fortune.

Poor Health Did Not Stop Him:

Wilberforce suffered from poor health for most of his life.  His health was complicated by addiction to opium, which was an ingredient of laudanum, a medication which his physician prescribed.  His various afflictions only add to the wonderment at all he accomplished in his life.

Wilberforce was mentored by an Anglican priest name John Newton.  Newton was the son of the captain of slave ship and followed his father into that occupation.  By his own accounting, Newton was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Africans on the passage to the Americas.

However, Newton also experienced a religious conversion and foreswore the slave trade.  He wrote the hymn, “Amazing Grace,” about his conversion and devoted the balance of his life to the abolition movement. At several critical junctures, he provided Wilberforce the encouragement and inspiration to continue the fight for abolition.

Lessons For Us Today:

There are many lessons to be learned from Wilberforce’s life, but perhaps the most salient in today’s political climate is about the role of faith in politics.  As many of you do, I find politicians who wear their faith on the sleeve for political advantage to be disgusting.  It is something for which I believe they will be severely judged one day.

But Wilberforce’s faith was the authentic article.  It drove his passion for justice and sustained him through many personal and political trials, including his frequent illnesses.

His life stands as a sharp rebuttal to those who argue that political leaders must check their faith and the values it represents in the capitol coat closet.  It also stands in stark contrast to politicians that showboat their faith while not truly standing for the values it teaches.

In 2007, Michael Apted directed a film titled “Amazing Grace,” which is a dramatization of Wilberforce’s life and his role in the abolition movement (See the accompanying trailer below).  The movie marked the 200th anniversary of the passage of Wilberforce’s bill in 1807 that outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire.

Watching Amazing Grace over the next few days would be a well-deserved tribute to Wilberforce on his birthday and a way to celebrate a remarkable and heroic life that reminds us the difference that a single committed, faithful life can make to rest of the world.

Reprinted with permission of the author.

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Bill King is a life-long resident of Houston, Texas, successful businessman and lawyer, a long-time opinion columnist for the Houston Chronicle, and the author of “Unapologetically Moderate.” He now writes the blog that carries his name.

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